"It would be a great honour to welcome Pope Francis to the Olympic Stadium for the European Championships in Rome 2024." This is the invitation addressed by the president of Fidal and the EuroRoma 2024 Foundation Stefano Mei to the Pontiff, who today received in audience at the Vatican the sports association "Athletica Vaticana" to celebrate five years of activity of the official sports club of the Holy See, affiliated since 2019 to the Italian Athletics Federation.
President Mei, who had the opportunity to dialogue with the Pope and to testify to the closeness of the world of athletics, presented the Holy Father with a jersey of the European Athletics Championships in Rome 2024, scheduled from 7 to 12 June, and a reproduction of the European Cup won for the first time by the Italian national team last June in Poland. In the Clementine Hall in the Vatican, Pope Francis welcomed the athletes, managers and their families, expressing his "joy for the presence of Athletica Vaticana on the streets, on the tracks and on the playing fields" and for the "Christian witness in the great world of sport, which today represents the most widespread cultural expression, provided that the amateurishness that preserves sport is always maintained." The Holy Father also stressed that it is "significant that our meeting is taking place in the first days of 2024, which is the Olympic and Paralympic Year. Thinking back to the value of the 'Olympic truce', my hope is that, in the particularly dark historical moment we are experiencing, sport can build bridges, break down barriers, foster peaceful relations."
Addressing the guests, the Pope recalled that "every athlete, through discipline and commitment, teaches us that with faith and perseverance we can achieve goals that we never thought possible. This message of hope and courage is crucial, especially for young people. I encourage each of you to see sport as a path in life that helps you to build a more supportive community and to carry forward the values of the Christian life: loyalty, sacrifice, team spirit, commitment, inclusion, asceticism, redemption."
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